


early, early

by softtofustew



Series: on & on [1]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Day6 - Freeform, Jaebri, Jaehyungparkian, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 05:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15722745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softtofustew/pseuds/softtofustew
Summary: afraid of letting his words flow freely, jae thinks, if time had passed, perhaps the love for the other could’ve lasted until the end - or at least, half of what it was at the start.





	1. before you go (please don't go)

**Author's Note:**

> was listening to the 1975 and felt especially emotional when their second title track came on - this one is for the emotionally unstable ones (esp. me). side note: i hope you enjoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't hold on. don't let go.

the room is stripped bare of light, the only shred of it the bit slithering through the holes of their blinds, shutting the two out of the world beyond them. shutting the two into the four walls, confining them of love. of life. and - in jae’s opinion - of time.  _ so much time, so little time. _

younghyun’s planting small kisses down the pale skin of the boy’s chest, lips dry and chapped from almost an hour of this - of laying in bed, of kissing jae senseless, of shutting out the momentous reality tensing up between the two. beside him, jae can only sigh. he twists his fingers in younghyun’s freshly-dyed dusty light brown hair, strands of it tangled.

they ignore the truth piling up in stacks and stacks and endless stacks just outside their bedroom door. they ignore the screaming truth that if one opens the door, they’ll only greet the gush of cold hard reality with open arms. it’s clear: neither wants that.

“bribri,” the name slips from jae’s lips like clear, flowing water. like always. younghyun pauses to glimpse up at him, under eyelashes coated with dry tears. the moment their gazes meet, jae’s lips turn downwards slightly. he reaches out to graze younghyun’s cheeks, to lift his head up to kiss his lips.

one thing they’ve been good at for the past one year and two months: their lips speak better against each other rather than apart. words caught in their throats spill into the others as their lips find way, make way. tongues glide along lower lips, movements familiar, before touching with an electric spark jae might never get tired of.  _ been here before so many times. too many times. _

sadly, one thing they’ve been good at, too: their lips constrict them of their voices, too tainted with hurt to use. jae thinks, if he let his mouth run, he’d blurt everything in a blur too painful to hear with human ears. younghyun thinks, if he let his voice run, he’d spill everything in a poem too slow to bear with human ears.

they’re constricted within their own bodies, their own voices. the irony runs dry.

as they kiss, jae hovers above younghyun. duvet long thrown carelessly onto the floor, jae lets his legs tangle with younghyun’s at the end of the bed. he leans down closer to begin pressing open-mouthed kisses along the other’s strong jaw, and younghyun groans, fumbling under jae’s hold on his own clenched fists.

“jae,” younghyun blurts breathlessly. jae ignores him, insistently continuing the trail of the ghost of his lips along the side of the boy’s cheek. that is, until younghyun, exhausted, shoves jae off of him, almost violently, and setting him down next to him. jae grumbles, eyes narrowing. eyes tired.

“what.”  _ why am i whispering? _ perhaps, if jae raised his voice, the neighbours would hear, would suspect again, would call the police again and would complain of yet ‘another contribution to noise pollution, can’t they settle their relationship out of the house, somewhere more secluded?’ upon the memory, jae remembers distinctively how they’d indeed gone out of the house after that - younghyun to sungjin’s, jae to a dodgy bar to let loose and fuck his way with an innocent bartender.

he had the fox eyes, jae remembers sadly.

yet they hadn’t shone as brightly as younghyun’s, hadn’t screamed pent up emotions or the like. fucking disappointing.

younghyun frowns. “should we-”

“-no,” jae cuts him off harshly, moving to kiss him again. a palm lays flat against his chest, a good foot away from him. jae sighs deeply. retreats to the wall where the side of the bed is pressed against. “what? haven’t i heard this a dozen times already? haven’t  _ we _ heard?”

“and a dozen times not enough for it to get into your head,” younghyun retorts, struggling to sit up. when he does, he looms over jae - not mad, eyebrows furrowed in somewhat a mixture of pleading and exhaustion. exhaustion from the same old words over and over and over again every single damn night, in the wee hours of 2am evolving into 3.

jae doesn’t admit defeat - he  _ hates _ admitting defeat, and so scrambles to sit up straight too, eye-levelled with the other. their hands on the mattress are curled into fists, so close to touch the skin of the other, jae notes stupidly. _ it’s pathetic, i know. _

jae opens his lips. “what now?”

younghyun only looks at jae, looks at him in the same clear gaze that seems to whisper something along the lines of, ‘you know it. why don’t you take the lead now, like every other time?’ the words almost seem to be laced with the harshness of younghyun’s voice that jae’s become accustomed to recently. they ring vibrantly in jae’s head as he leans closer.

admit defeat already. “packed already?” jae asks. firm, unwavering tone.

he can see the tiredness leak out of younghyun’s eyes as the corners of them crinkle into a sad smile. forced happiness. “yeah. i mean, there’s not much to pack either…” he gestures to two lone cardboard boxes lying close to the bedroom door, one scribbled across hastily with black markered words, ‘CLOTHES’ and the other ‘BOOKS’. another huger box leans against the plaster wall, wrapped delicately, ‘GUITAR’ emblazoned across it distinctively in smudged marker.

jae doesn’t say anything else, just allows his eyes to settle on the guitar: he remembers the exact day eleven months ago when he’d gifted it to younghyun himself. fresh in his mind. the look of absolute shock, the unshed tears in the corners of his eyes, the fluttering of relief and warmth overtaking jae’s pounding heart. the memory of the muscle of it is long gone, but the feel of it had burnt itself in jae’s mind wholly and surely.

“are you sure you want to… give this to me?” younghyun had asked incredulously, beyond disbelief. jae had grinned, brushed the tears from falling from the boy’s eyes, kissed his cheek affectionately. he hadn’t replied, but the kiss he gave said enough, he had believed then.

now, jae isn’t quite sure whether it even was enough.  _ just look where your gift landed him,  _ jae chastises himself. he frowns at the box, wishing for it to somehow dissipate into thin air - selfish, he knows, but what can jae say? how different their lives could’ve been now if jae could turn back the clock, could rethink his choices, could resay all he ever said to the other.

how the months of crumpled lined notebook paper and breakdowns and making love out of almost nothing but the prospect of releasing stress, how all of that had flown by in a blink of an eye: here they are now. setting: younghyun’s bedroom, 2:54 a.m. characters: park jaehyung, soon-to-be musical sensation kang younghyun.

jae almost rips his hair out as he remembers the names younghyun had scribbled at the top corner of a ripped out paper a mere week ago. the other had gone out to grab a water from the kitchen, and as nosy as jae is, he’d taken a peek and almost crushed the paper in his hands. amongst some odd english names had laid across the paper, there it was: brian.  _ jae _ had made up that name himself, and now  _ he _ was going to go use it. an identity to overrule another.

“jae.” the name is soft, gentle, like caressing a baby’s cheek mid-lullaby. jae forces to peel his eyes away to look at younghyun square in the eye. younghyun’s eyes are pleading, jae notices with a jerk of his heart.  _ tell me to stay. tell me to stay. tell me to stay. _

“it’s pretty late,” jae finally states, sombre. and he watches as the glint of a hint of disappointment, of dissatisfaction, fade in and out of younghyun’s irises for a split second before gone for good. the other boy merely nods, peering down at his socked feet.

“yeah.” younghyun clears his throat. “yeah.”

jae smiles weakly before allowing his head to rest on the pillows, shuffling to face the wall, back against younghyun. he doesn’t want to see the first tear slide down younghyun’s cheek, doesn’t want to see the sniffle form as the other lies down, too, facing jae’s back, hands kept to himself. he doesn’t want to see the hurt etched into the creases of the other’s face, doesn’t want him to see the second the selfishness of the moment rupture jae’s harsh demeanour.

how can he ask for the other to stay when he knows the ending will still be the same?  
  



	2. turn the light off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hold on. let go.

when the sunshine begins creeping in, jae lays still in bed, wide awake. his mind has been replaying songs and snippets of clips of memories in his head throughout the night through silent tears, his heart numb as he lets his eyes flutter open. he stares at a spot on the wall, knows that he’ll never see it again, never will be in this position ever again.

beside him, younghyun sits perfectly still, tricking himself into sleep despite the hours of dawn gleaming through the blinds. he’d ,too, had been thinking back to just a mere few dozen-ish months back - setting: local park, characters: college senior kang younghyun, fresh graduate park jaehyung. the former sat at a bench, reading a book in the march spring; the latter had been strolling along the outskirts of the park.

younghyun had just dog-eared a page of ‘the wind-up bird chronicle’ - a classic, he thinks - when a figure had sat down right next to him, a mere few inches of space between the two, despite the expanse of empty benches lining the edges of the park. when he’d glanced up, he’d been taken aback by the boy’s visual appearance: all dusty blonde hair with black roots covering an eye, dark eyes glittering under the sunlight, crisp white shirt rolled up to elbows, jeans running down legs for miles. the stranger had thrown an arm over the bench, skin just skimming the broadness of younghyun’s shoulders.

he’d smiled lazily, brushed a bit of hair back. “murakami? that one’s pretty good,” he’d commented nonchalantly - younghyun had to act like a boy from one of his mangas hadn’t stepped out of his book, all cocky smirk and slow drawl.

“yeah,” younghyun had responded quietly. he’d tabbed the page, the one with a well-known quote, before smiling radiantly at the beauty of the boy before him. perhaps, if he’d read between the lines, he would’ve seen a glimpse into their future. perhaps, if he’d reread the quote a bit more, he’d realised the sheer chance of the moment.

_ ‘is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? we can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person’s essence? we convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?’ _

 

**_______________**

 

“you can’t just go and make decisions by yourself and expect me to figure them out all by my fucking self,” jae retorts. backtrack: setting, younghyun’s kitchen, three months prior to present time. characters: park jaehyung, kang younghyun, or the stage name he is to be coined, ‘youngk’.

younghyun grips the bridge of his nose between his fingers, the headache relentlessly tugging his conscience away. “look, jae, i told you, i told you two weeks ago just when i sent that email. so stop accusing me of not telling you, alright?” younghyun hates fighting. small feuds over who ate the last instant ramen cup, acceptable. arguments over the smallest of details which seem to blow up like volcanoes notwithstanding.

“look, bri,” jae persists. something younghyun has always felt the pull-push effect on is jae’s fiercess, his passion. sometimes jae’s determination exudes confidently from always pushing himself to do his best in whatever he loves. sometimes jae’s determination wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and thus culminates in him doing whatever it takes to get his way - and usually culminates in younghyun’s heart breaking just that little bit more.

“bri, i understand, you’re going to have the time of your life. but you couldn’t have exaggerated on the fact that you’re leaving for cana-fucking-da in, what, three months? twelve weeks? and expect me to think, ‘yeah, i’ll get over him.’ you think it’s that plain easy?” jae’s hands are fists by his side, his eyes fiery with fury.

younghyun has to curl his hands into fists until knuckles turn white to prevent himself from punching the look of desperation off of jae’s face. “you think  _ i _ want this? you think  _ i’m _ taking it easy, too? y spent weeks deciding on and off about whether to send in the email. what were your words? ‘even if you get it or not, no matter what, i still love you.’ so what’s all this about?”

“i said i still love you, i didn’t say i was happy about the decision, did i?” the words are arrows cutting straight through the thick air, aiming bullseye for younghyun’s heart.

and hurt, it did.

“haven’t you sat yourself down and thought how fucking selfish you’re being, jae?” younghyun bursts, arms thrown dismissively in the air. his heart is raging, raging, burning with all the words he’s wanted to tell jae ever since he’d recorded that song he’d composed a while back - something about living and letting go. back then, younghyun hadn’t known what exactly he was writing about.

now, he’s afraid. afraid that he’d been writing about letting go of the pseud jae had put up for himself, letting go of the bubbly front jae had always used, instead finally seeing the hurt and pain underneath thick layers of skin, instead finally revealing the inner demon.

and it hurt.

he doesn’t stop there, his mouth running miles a second. “i love you, jae, but the fact still stands: we’re both different people leading different lives, and i’m sorry, but mine doesn’t revolve around yours every single second, does it?” the tears are trails now, dripping past his chin. “it’s my decision, as does yours stand. it’s  _ my _ decision to take this chance. it’s  _ my _ decision to move off and away. i love you, jae, but i don’t know if you’ll ever understand that my life is the one i want to live in, not the life you want to take from me.”

“did i  _ say _ i wanted to take anything from you? no!” jae’s voice cracks as he hollers, eyes ablaze. “i didn’t! so stop with this bullshit you’re saying from your lips and-”

they’re cut off by a knock on the door. complaint: arguing for over two hours, contribution to noise pollution. “take your breakup business somewhere else, please,” the policeman had said, lips flat in a thin line.

and they do. younghyun dissolves into a sobbing mess as sungjin strokes his hair at his friend’s house. he doesn’t have to ask jae where he’d gone the following morning when he stumbled back home, to find jae on the couch, someone else’s body strewn across the expanse of the fabric. someone else’s shirt on the floor, someone else’s marks along jae’s collarbones. someone else’s soul mingling in the still dawn air as younghyun stands, numb, watching the pliant expression as jae sleeps sound. the air is punctuated with soft snores from the boy.

younghyun bends to a kneel beside jae. strokes the hair away from his eyes, sad smile playing on the lips.  _ you’re so beautiful,  _ younghyun thinks sadly, the detrimental serenity of the morning teasing with jae’s shut eyes. the boy kisses jae’s forehead, once, before getting up. he grabs the book on the coffee table, before leaving the house, shutting the door behind him.

 

**_______________**

 

and here they lay.

setting: younghyun’s bedroom, to be rented out in a week, 07:23. characters: youngk, park jaehyung.

jae shifts in the bed, lets the late-night retrieves sheets fall from his body as he fumbles, sits up. he runs a hand through his hair, now a faded silver, the black roots noticeable. he watches as younghyun’s eyelashes flitter, his eyes slowly succumbing to the morning. when younghyun’s gaze sharpens, when it lands to meet jae’s, their hearts skip a beat in unison.

today, marked on the calendar already tucked away in one of the boxes by the door, circled and scribbled hastily in bright blue marker:  _ moving day! _

jae lets his eyes scan the expression on younghyun’s face. lethargy lies in the lines running his forehead when he yawns, his eyes dark… empty. emotionless. his lips are a soft pink, his hair fluffy and poofy, tousled from sleep - or perhaps, the lack of it. his bare chest is tucked amongst the endless sheets, creases of the waves of the fabric clenched in younghyun’s fists.

younghyun allows himself to look at jae, one more time, one last time for the road. how he was gifted with this boy, this boy with his confident grin and his energetic nature and his sharp tongue. how he was cursed with this boy, the memory of him forever in his memory.

the inevitable is near. the sand in the hourglass is running out, the once seemingly endless trickling of sand now fading away, fading out into the ending pile in the bottom orb. 

eons of times together fuse as one as they look at each other endearingly. finally, jae cuts the moment into two - one half for himself, one half for younghyun. (no, it’s youngk. fuck.) he shifts his weight to lift himself up and off the bed, feet finding land. finding the middle ground between them. his gaze never leaves younghyun’s burning into his body. “i should get going.”

“you’re not going to see me off?” younghyun almost kicks himself for saying so, but he can’t help himself: the despair is clear in his tone, the hopelessness of the situation. but all fires that burnt as brightly for the both of them will, eventually, gradually, fizzle into nothing. it doesn’t matter how, or when.

perhaps now.

jae smiles, his lips turned upwards. there’s a strain in the muscle there as he says softly, gently, devoid of the stiffness just the previous night, “no. i think it’s best for the both of us.”

_ for the both of us. _ younghyun’s chest aches with a longing.  _ not selfish. i care for both of us. _

“alright,” younghyun finally lets go. holding onto you will do you no good, isn’t that how his own song went?  _ the bright future that we sought together/ i know we can no longer/ wish for a happy ending _ . he lets the tear slide down his cheek silently, lets jae’s face crumple with sympathy. (yet there’s a sense of apathy in the room. younghyun tries not to let this bother him as he mirrors jae’s sad smile.)

neither moves for a moment, lets the time left on the hourglass lapse between the both. 

“before you go,” younghyun starts - _ please don’t go, please don’t go, please don’t go  _ \- “turn the light off, will you?”

they’d left the light on yesterday night, courtesy of jae and his fear of the dark.

jae doesn’t reply, only grins wider. at last, the last drop of sand falls, falls, falls as jae turns his back to younghyun, hand lifting, finger clicking the switch off, before traipsing out. shuts the door behind him. when younghyun hears the footsteps padding away until he hears them no longer, he finally crumbles, the last bit of him fading away, just as the hourglass ends its lifetime.

 

**_______________**

 

there was a time in their lives when they both of them had sat at younghyun’s front porch, overlooking the cars whizzing by in the chilly crisp autumn breeze, jae’s head leaning on younghyun’s shoulders despite his height. jae grins, before pressing small kisses on younghyun’s cheek. lips against skin, he whispers, “what’s the dream?”

“hm?”

“ _ the _ dream,” jae whispers, quieter, hushed as if a secret between the two. he turns to face younghyun, grinning. “the dream that you aim for. all the shooting stars,  _ that _ dream. the super fucking cheesy one.”

“hm,” younghyun giggles to himself, pretending to stroke an invisible goatee on his chin. he knows well enough what it is, wants to play with the humour of the conversation. “i’m pretty sure you know it already? music. but i doubt i’d make it big-”

“-liar, liar-”

“-pants on fire?-”

“-you,” jae interrupts, eyes crinkled (younghyun swears he sees the ghost of a star shining in his eyes), “have the best voice. ever. period. fucking low and growly turned pitch-perfect falsetto. plays all the riffs like they were handmade from god for you. you, babe, shouldn’t demote your own self like that.” with that, he picks up the guitar - the fated gift - from its place beside him where they’d set it down to make out on the porch about twenty minutes prior.

“play for me. anything,” jae requests, tilting his head slightly, mischievous.

younghyun only laughs, but the gears in his head clunk and clatter. what will he sing for the love of his life? he thinks for a while, thinks of how, on that fateful day, if he hadn’t picked murakami, if he’d picked up the mitch albom on his bedside table instead, how that one small fault could’ve thrown his entire life into a whole new path altogether. wistful.  _ i took a chance for another chance. _

he remembers how he’d thought he’d been saved: what he has never told jae is the fact that younghyun had been rethinking about his choices in uni majors, had been hanging off of a tether between two choices, whether to pursue music or business - to follow the heart or follow the practicality of life. jae had looked him in the eye back then, smiled. “why choose? why can’t you pursue two?” he’d held younghyun that night and kissed him for the first time - kissed the boy who didn’t know what life would be like after he finally, finally settled on his choice. 

“alright,” he replies, finally, taking the guitar, strums a bit. tunes the G string a little, before repositioning himself. he strums, softly, and jae immediately recognises the chords. his heart warms at the dusty remembrance of younghyun rewriting 2am’s song. something about giving away all he has, to jae. to no one else.

younghyun’s voice sends the coldest of chills down jae’s spine, and jae sighs softly, lets himself drown in the sea just a while, lets himself grin as he sets his head back down on younghyun’s shoulders. they let life fly by before them, the only sound evident in the air being the other’s voice cutting through the crystal clear sky.

 

**_______________**

 

as younghyun sits by himself, all alone, he dazily stands. he flicks the blinds open. the light seeps through, before showering him in all their grace. he stands to watch jae’s car stutter to life, before pulling away and out of the driveway.

he thinks, perhaps. perhaps in the future, somewhere tucked away in toronto, he’ll vocalise the want he’s feeling now, how he wants nothing but for jae to stay, for jae to tuck him to bed and kiss him goodnight. perhaps in the future, if they meet again, perhaps he’ll finally let go - he’s still holding on, knows it’s futile to dream but dreams anyway.

because. if not for dreams, he wouldn’t be sighing and changing into a new tee and ripped jeans, tucking away the sweatpants he’d slept in overnight - jae’s sweatpants. if not for dreams, he wouldn’t be piling his boxes into the taxi set for the airport - jae would’ve helped him carry the boxes, failed, then laughed over his clumsiness. if not for dreams, he wouldn’t be on the next flight to toronto, canada, all the while tracing letters on the plane window in the foggy cold.  _ j-a-e.  _

if not for dreams, he wouldn’t have had to hold jae in his arms, wouldn’t have had to feel all the pain and hurt in the world, wouldn’t have had to tell jae to turn the light off for one last time. wouldn’t have had to lead the life he’s living now, up and away from the love he’s built with jae.

younghyun thinks, he doesn’t regret this. maybe he will in the future, when he’s alone and single and graying because he can’t find anyone as imperfect as jae. but now, he doesn’t. doesn’t regret the love they’ve built, storeys high. doesn’t regret his decision, jae’s decision. because why? 

he thinks that’s what life is for: to learn to hold onto things and learn to let them go.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/softtofustew_) // [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/softtofustew_) // [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/softtofustew)


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